Projects per year
Abstract
The aim of cellular agriculture is to use cell-culturing technologies to produce alternatives to agricultural products. Cul-tured meat is an example of a cellular agriculture product, made by using tissue engineering methods. This study aims to improve the understanding of the potential environmental impacts of cultured meat production by comparing be-tween different bioprocess design scenarios. This was done by carrying out a life cycle assessment (LCA) for a bioprocess system using hollow fiber bioreactors, and utilizing bench-scale experimental data for C2C12 cell prolifer-ation, differentiation and media metabolism. Scenario and sensitivity analyses were used to test the impact of changes in the system design, data sources, and LCA methods on the results to support process design decision making. We com-pared alternative scenarios to a baseline of C2C12 cells cultured in hollow fiber bioreactors using media consisting of DMEM with serum, for a 16-day proliferation stage and 7-day differentiation stage. The baseline LCA used the average UK electricity mix as the energy source, and heat treatment for wastewater sterilization. The greatest reduction in en-vironmental impacts were achieved with the scenarios using CHO cell metabolism instead of C2C12 cell metabolisim (64-67 % reduction); achieving 128 % cell biomass increase during differentiation instead of no increase (42-56 % reduction); using wind electricity instead of average UK electricity (6-39 % reduction); and adjusting the amino acid use based on experimental data (16-27 % reduction). The use of chemical wastewater treatment instead of heat treatment increased all environmental impacts, except energy demand, by 1-16 %. This study provides valuable insights for the cultured meat field to understand the effects of different process design scenarios on environmental impacts, and therefore provides a framework for deciding where to focus development efforts for improving the envi-ronmental performance of the production system.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 158051 |
Journal | Science of the Total Environment |
Volume | 851 |
Issue number | Part 1 |
Number of pages | 11 |
ISSN | 0048-9697 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 10 Dec 2022 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Fields of Science
- 416 Food Science
- 1172 Environmental sciences
- Environment
- Novel foods
- Carbon footprint
- Cultivated meat
- Cell -based meat
- Livestock
- REGULATORY CHALLENGES
Projects
- 4 Finished
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Assessing the potential of novel food production technologies to improve the environmental sustainability of food systems
Tuomisto, H. (Project manager), Mazac, R. M. (Participant), El Wali, M. (Participant), Karinen, H. J. (Participant), Kokko, R. I. E. (Participant), Omotosho, T. O. (Participant) & Dalmau Arredondo, L. (Participant)
Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry
02/09/2019 → 31/12/2022
Project: University of Helsinki Three-Year Research Project
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Environmental impacts of cultured meat
Tuomisto, H. (Project manager) & Ernst, E. E. (Participant)
02/08/2019 → 01/08/2021
Project: Research project
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Cultured meat in post-animal bioeconomy – changing relationships between humans and farmed animals
Ryynänen, T. (Project manager), El Wali, M. (Participant), Toivanen, A. I. (Participant), Heinonen, V. (Participant), Hyyryläinen, T. (Participant), Järviö, N. (Participant), Moritz, J. (Participant) & Tuomisto, H. (Participant)
01/01/2019 → 31/12/2024
Project: Foundations (Private Foundations, Non-Profit Foundations, Charitable Trusts)